


The eastern coast, absent Edmund Burke

by mlle



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Day At The Beach, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlle/pseuds/mlle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bahorel looks up. “What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>Jehan sits heavily on the rainbow towel beside him. Bahorel’s mouth is turned down under his heavy mustache, twin arching lines that make his face look egregiously sad. Jehan feels terrible.</p>
<p>“I feel terrible,” he says.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Bahorel answers. “But what is wrong?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The eastern coast, absent Edmund Burke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [barricadeur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/barricadeur/gifts).



> a birthday fic for barricadeur! she said she likes jehan/bahorel and beach stories. i forgot to ask if she also likes mustaches.

Jehan tries really hard not to frown. 

Bahorel stands beside him, cheerfully oblivious, spreading two towels over the yellow sand. He kicks off his flipflops and lowers himself onto the blue one, taking care not to kick any sand onto the towels themselves.

Jehan watches his strong legs fold, distracted for a moment by their masculine power. 

Then he looks back at the seaside stretching before him and must school his face again. 

Bahorel looks up. “What’s wrong?”

Jehan sits heavily on the rainbow towel beside him. Bahorel’s mouth is turned down under his heavy mustache, twin arching lines that make his face look egregiously sad. Jehan feels terrible.

“I feel terrible,” he says.

“Yes,” Bahorel answers. “But what is wrong?”

“I did not expect it to be so…” He searches for the word. “Bright. Clear. Sun-drenched?” He cocks his head.

“It is a beach,” Bahorel informs him.

“Well, yes, of course.” Jehan purses his lips. “And yet…”

Bahorel strips off his t-shirt and stretches out on the towel. The sun in drenching everything, really, and Jehan worries that Bahorel will burn horridly. He has only a small pair of shorts left to protect him, after all. 

“There’s sunscreen in my bag,” Bahorel says, as though he had been following Jehan’s train of thought. Or perhaps just his eyes. “Tell me what troubles you while you apply it to my back.”

“Very well,” Jehan says. If Bahorel will turn over, he can frown with impunity. He retrieves the sunscreen and measures a dollop into his palm. Its creamy whiteness puts Jehan in mind of death, a little, in a way he cannot explain. 

Bahorel’s muscular back is already hot when Jehan’s hands smooth over it. He frowns decidedly. “I did not think the beach would be so warm, nor so open. There is no shelter anywhere, and I fear you will burn.”

Bahorel laughs. “That’s what the sunscreen is for.”

“Interesting.” As he rubs, it disappears into Bahorel’s warm skin. “I had been, I’m sorry to say, put in mind of a very different aspect when you initially explained your plans to me.”

“And what aspect would that be? What do you find missing from our outing?”

Jehan sighs. “I hate to complain—” Bahorel snorts in that way that puffs his mustache from his face. “Only,” Jehan continues, unaffected, “where are the high and climbing rocks? Where the little patches of earth and the goats to roam over them? Where the portentous clouds? Where the storm on the sea, lightning touching down just at the edge of our distant view?”

Bahorel rolls over and squints up at Jehan, face tipped to the not at all dark sky. “Jehan.”

“Yes?”

“Are you,” he says with that familiar tone of exasperation, “are you really upset that I have brought you to a lovely beach instead of a Gothic nightmare of sublime oceanic terror?”

Jehan bites his lip. “Will you be troubled if I say yes?”

Bahorel rolls his eyes. When he smiles, his mustache strains against its own nature. “That’s it,” he says. “No more Mary Wollstonecraft this week.” 

He pushes Jehan back into the sand, kissing him breathless.


End file.
